The king of shock rock says his life really began in earnest after giving up the alcohol demon and rediscovering his Christian beginnings.

Alice Cooper woke up puking blood nearly 30 years ago and knew it was time to get sober.

“I got to a hospital right away and was lucky enough to be treated by an amazing doctor,” recalls the king of shock rock who’s appearing at Casino Rama on May 20.

“He told me that if I stopped drinking, I could probably record 20 more albums, but if I didn’t, in two weeks I’d be playing with my friends Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix up in heaven.”

His words had the desired effect. Cooper put the plug in the jug, saved his darker demons for onstage and is now out there with his latest tour, unrepentantly titled No More Mr. Nice Guy: the Original Evil Returns.

He admits the world of rock touring has changed “and now everything has to be bigger: Bigger theatrics, bigger sound, I’ve added an extra guitar player, toughened up the music.”

But if you still have fond memories of the Alice who welcome you to his nightmare some 36 years ago, have no fear.

“When it comes to songs like ‘Billion Dollar Babies’, I insist on doing them exactly the way they were on the first recording. When I go to hear the Stones perform, I don’t want them to give me a reggae version of ‘Brown Sugar’.”

What Cooper is talking about are numbers like “Feed My Frankenstein” and “Vengeance Is Mine”. “Those songs are big trucks to drive, man, so I’m going to milk them a little more, add some more sound. Make the kids happy.”

“The kids”? Aren’t most Alice Cooper fans well into their 50s by now?

“No, no, no! The first 20 rows of my concerts, all over the world, are people 25 years old and younger. They dress up like nurses, executioners, all the Alice Cooper characters and they know all the lyrics. It’s almost like The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”

Cooper thinks one of the reasons the younger generation are rediscovering him and his colleagues from the past, groups like Deep Purple and Moody Blues, are “they’re learning that we’ve been throwing the words ‘Rock Star’ around too loosely. One hit album and you’re a star? No way. Make that 10 gold albums. You won a reality show? What’s that mean? Survive 35 years in the business and then let’s talk.”

He does, however, grant one current performer entrance into the pantheon of genuine stars.

“Lady Gaga is different. She’s an outrageous person, but she backs it up with great music and full creative control. She knows what it takes to really make it.”

It’s certainly a path Cooper never thought he was headed down when he was born Vincent Damon Furnier in Allen Park, Michigan on Feb. 4, 1948.

“I grew up in a very Christian home and I was very happy. My dad was a pastor, my grandpa was an evangelist, all my friends were church kids and all my music was church music.”

But by the time he was 16, his horizons had broadened, peer pressure had kicked in, he set out to form a rock band. He also knew that in the overcrowded late ’60s music scene, he had to do something to stand out.

So the group was christened “Alice Cooper”. Did the name come from a witch? A Ouija board? Or a murdered schoolgirl? All those stories have been out there over the years and when asked which one is correct, Cooper laughs, “Take your pick!”

The band also started working on an over-the-top style of presentation that would eventually help define an entire school of music-making. In time, the black leather, the ghoulish makeup, the live chickens killed on stage, the guillotines and electric chairs would prove as important as the songs the band was playing.

But even though it might have seemed to be a construct of show business hype and gratuitous shock, Cooper claims now he always had a serious plan in mind.

“My show always is and always has been about good vs. evil. Angels vs. demons. And I’ve never seen a movie that — when the bad guy wins — you feel satisfied. As much as I love Darth Vader, I always wanted him to get in the end.

“Don’t get me wrong, there has always been an element of black humour in everything Alice does, but that doesn’t mean he’s not serious underneath. When my dad was preaching, he could make the congregation roar with laughter one minute and piss themselves with terror over his vision of hell the next. Alice tries to do the same thing.”

I notice that Cooper refers to “Alice” as if he were a separate creation and not part of himself, a tactic that Barry Humphries also employs when speaking of Dame Edna.

“It’s true,” he agrees. “Especially when my kids were small, they never referred to me as Alice. They’d say ‘Let’s see what Alice is going to do in the show.’”

During his career, Cooper has gone through two incredibly formative changes, one in abandoning his abuse of alcohol and the other in re-embracing the Christianity of his youth.

He says that each of them had an influence in what he did on stage.

“When I was drinking and at my worst, I go back and look at pictures and videos of my performances then. Alice was an outcast, Alice was a victim, a whipping boy, a pathetic figure.

“But when I stopped drinking, Alice changed. He stood straight and proud, he was an arrogant Alan Rickman kind of villain and he looked down on people.”

Becoming a born-again Christian happened slowly for Cooper, during the five years following his sobriety.

“I came to realize there was something missing in my life. An emptiness. I had tried to fill it up with alcohol, but that didn’t work, so I turned to Christ.

“You start reassessing where you are in your life, you start asking what’s really important. It didn’t mean I had to quit being Alice, or sugar-coat him. But I started writing some different stuff. Sure, I still do all the old songs too, because that’s what people show up to hear and I’m fine with doing them.”

The highest form of approbation came Cooper’s way this past March, when he was inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, some say very belatedly.

He showed up in a blood-stained shirt, with a boa constrictor draped around his shoulders, proving that some things never change.

Cooper’s voice takes on an unexpectedly softer tone as he discusses the event.

“Some people said I should have been there years ago, but I didn’t care. To tell you the truth, I never knew what it was going to be like until I got there.

“I looked out into the audience and all my musical teachers were sitting out there. It felt like I was graduating.”

And then he quietly sings the lyrics of his first big hit.

“School’s out for summer,

School’s out forever.

School’s been blown to pieces.”

ALICE COOPER’S FIVE FAVE MUSICIANS:

LADY GAGA: “She’s great because she gets it, but she can back it up. She can sing, she can write, she can play piano, she’s not just a costume queen.”

JEFF BECK: Anybody who ever picks up a guitar in this business owes a huge debt to Jeff. He set the standard.

THE KINKS: At heart, I’ve always been a hard rocker and these guys were one of my major influences.

THE YARDBIRDS: They took the blues and sent them back to us in a whole different form.

THE ROLLING STONES: When I first starting out, I looked up to them because they were dangerous. I still feel that way.

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